


prayer, barely quiet

by jesspava



Category: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Background Jinmin, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU, M/M, memory loss/alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 21:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13108650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesspava/pseuds/jesspava
Summary: You’re going to be gone when I wake up, he wants to say, except he can’t get the words out of his throat.I’m never going to see you again, Hoseok. I won’t remember where you live. I won’t even know you exist.





	prayer, barely quiet

**Author's Note:**

> i started this at the beginning of the summer, but i didn't bother to finish it until now. because this is an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind AU, there is general time fuckery going on, so please pay attention to the structure and section breaks!
> 
>  **warnings:**  
>  -breakups  
> -confusing timelines  
> -memory erasure

 

_** present ** _

 

There’s something strangely electric about Jung Hoseok.

Yoongi is moored by the beachline, camera hanging around his neck, when he sees him for the first time. He’s been in a slump of sorts for past couple months, but his fingers twitch for the lens cap as the figure turns, head bent low like he’s searching for something in the water, feet sinking into the sand with his socks still on. 

The sky is a hammock of purpling clouds above their heads as Yoongi sits himself on a line of rocks. He contemplates the stranger in the distance. There’s something familiar about him that Yoongi can’t place his finger on, a buzzing in his chest.

He lifts his camera up, and the shutter clicks once, twice, three times. Yoongi adjusts the exposure as the lighting shifts, a streak of sun cutting down into the sea. Hoseok's silhouette goes up in backlight. When the boy turns, he stares down the lens of Yoongi’s camera, eyes dark through the viewfinder, and despite the embarrassment, Yoongi fights the urge to take another picture: a hand in his pocket, the dark red of his bomber jacket, the bronze frames of his tortoiseshell glasses as he casts his nose over the surf. A pair of boots dangle from one hand.

Yoongi blinks, dropping his eyes to where he thumbs at the display control, flipping back absentmindedly through previews. This is his old camera, he knows, but the last pictures are dated from five years ago. Someone smiling in the dark, candles flickering at midnight, laughing through the phone. A smile. Lips, mouth, tongue, teeth.

Yoongi puts a hand to his forehead, head starting to hurt.

 

∞∞∞

 

The boy from the beach is sitting in Yoongi’s compartment on the train.

He’s curled up against the window, orange hair splayed out awkwardly against the glass, breath fogging up the fingerprints by his teeth. His knees are pulled up into his chest, and his wet socks dangle off the end of the seat as he anchors them in place with his heels. Yoongi can’t look away. He stares, unashamed, even as the stranger flicks his head back at him, over the diagonal of the partitions and the walkway.

“Have I seen you before?” he asks eventually, and his voice tinny. Yoongi doesn’t know why it feels wrong, but turns his head anyway, enough to see the boy unfold himself from the cheap leather and make his way to across the car, still barefoot. His hair is plastered to his forehead with rain and wet, and Yoongi wants to pull the shirt of his body and keep him close.

“Jung Hoseok,” he says, reaching a hand out. He’s up on his knees to peer at Yoongi over the seating barrier, smile tugging at his lips. “Dancer.”

“Min Yoongi,” he accepts, trying not to make it too obvious when wiping his fingers across his jeans afterwards. “Photographer,” he says, trying to explain away the beach.

“Cool,” Hoseok says, bobbing his head awkwardly. He puts a hand to his neck self-consciously.

"Yeah," Yoongi agrees, not sure what to say.

Then: “Um, do you music?” Hoseok asks, stilted, lurching. 

“What?”

“Sorry,” Hoseok says, “You just- how you’re. It’s like I’ve seen you before?”

Yoongi’s headache’s starting to return.

“I’ve worked at a record shop, uh, for the past five years. I don’t know if you’ve ever been,” Hoseok says, “Maybe that’s where we’ve…?”

“The one on third?”

“Yeah.”

Yoongi leans back in his seat, eyes searching Hoseok’s face.

“Yeah,” he says, aiming for casual and missing it by a mile, “I’ve been.”

“Cool, cool.” Hoseok says, nodding. “It might be the hair, so.”

“The what?”

“Oh- the hair,” Hoseok points to his head, “I change colors a lot, so that’s probably why you don’t remember me.”

“I don’t think I could forget a face like yours,” Yoongi blurts out. His cheeks go up in flames when Hoseok’s eyes widen, instinctual; involuntary.

“Next stop, coming up,” the announcer says, voice crackling through the speakers, startling Hoseok so bad he nearly falls out of his seat.

“Sorry, this is me,” he says, sounding almost apologetic. The train turns, curving Yoongi into the armrest of the chair next to him, and Hoseok’s bangs dip to the side. The breaks squeal, wheels shaking to a stop. "See you 'round."

Hoseok picks his way back to his things, tugging his boots and jacket on, brushing wet hair into a hat. He makes his way to the door, clutching onto the rail with his head turned away from Yoongi - enough to expose the sharp line of his jaw. His posture is poor and there should be nothing extraordinary about this moment, but Yoongi’s quick to turn his camera on and snap a photo in the dark anyway.

"Right," Yoongi says lamely, almost forgetting that he has to get off at this station too.

 

∞∞∞

 

Yoongi is nearly run over by a car on the way back to his apartment.

“Hey,” Hoseok calls, rolling down his window and ducking his head low. Yoongi freezes, hands shoved into his pockets as he catches Hoseok’s eye over his shoulder. “Need a ride?”

“Are you stalking me?” is the first thing Yoongi asks.

“No,” Hoseok says, looking sheepish. “You looked cold.”

“Oh,” he says, surprised.

“You could finish up those photos of me,” Hoseok says. His lips are turning up at the corners. “Heard I'm good with cameras."

Yoongi steps up to the edge of the curb, bending at the waist to put a hand against the side of Hoseok’s car. The metal and paint is cold under his fingertips. He looks at Hoseok, then at the seats  —  worn but clean — and a moon pendant hanging from his rearview mirror.

“Yeah?” he asks, fingers curling into the empty window ledge. A truck horn in the distance. Headlights in red and white, speeding away. 

Yoongi unlocks the car door and swings himself down in one smooth motion. The seat gives way beneath him, just enough to be noticeable, and he reaches behind his shoulder to buckle himself in. There’s Rachmaninoff playing quietly from the radio, and Yoongi thinks: this is right, this is right, this is right.

 

∞∞∞

 

Hoseok’s good with cameras.

They’re both drinking apple cider from chipped wine glasses, pretending it’s champagne, and laughing about some stupid variety rerun playing in the background. The apartment is small — big enough for two, but no more than that — and he’s funny, charismatic in a way that should make Yoongi exhausted, but doesn’t. He watches from the couch as Hoseok putters about the kitchen, putting together a three course meal of instant ramen and chips and a candy bar, split in two.

The lights are down low, and they’re almost living in complete darkness. To save energy, Hoseok had explained, eyes tilted with amusement. It’s awful lighting, Yoongi knows, but that doesn’t stop him from taking photos anyway. Hoseok’s profile is flawless, gorgeous, and his lips are damp with cider. Yoongi wants to kiss him, wants to press his lips to the smooth skin of his shoulder and curl fingers around his hips.

“Look at the camera for me?” he asks. Hoseok’s hair is parted to one side - still drying. Yoongi focuses in on his cheeks, and the steady slope of his nose in the half-light. The bokeh of his apartment is blurred into something soft, an easy contrast against the angles of his face.

Hoseok tilts his chin up, eyes a pool of heavy through the lens, and Yoongi feels something drop low in his stomach at the sight.

_Not here_ , he thinks as he closes down on another photo. _Not now._

 

∞∞∞

_**three days ago** _

 

Even after the breakup— four years edging on five— people had asked Yoongi if it was hard for him, loving Hoseok. Flighty, awful, anxious.

Sometimes when it’s just him and the world, he drives to Hoseok’s apartment and sits on the rooftop, knowing he’s breathing somewhere, out there. It’s like staring at the sun when it comes to touching Hoseok’s heart. It burns. He burns. The fire does not stop.

“Love me,” Hoseok says without saying.

“I am,” Yoongi murmurs. In the only way he knows how. “I am.”

(The answer is no. It was never hard. It is never hard.)

 

∞∞∞

 

“I’m here,” Yoongi announces with painful reluctance, standing in the middle of Jimin’s living room. He’d considered opening the door and then leaving right afterwards, but Jimin’s got the ears of a bat, and he can’t even set foot in the building’s elevator without him knowing somehow.

“Hey,” Jimin says, appearing from the kitchen. He’s drying his hands on a dishtowel, and sweat is starting to bead around his temples. “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says lamely, too tired to even try. “You too.”

They lapse into awkward silence, and he surveys the state of the apartment to stop from meeting Jimin’s eyes — not even sure what he’s looking for. A drink, maybe, if Yoongi was sixteen days younger, but things have been a steady shade of gray for the past week, and he’s not sure if alcohol is going to make him feel better about it anymore.

“Food’s almost done,” Jimin says, slinging the towel over his shoulder. He holds out his hand for Yoongi to take, fingers so small when they curl around Yoongi’s and lead him to the sofa. “I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

Jimin smooths Yoongi’s hair back from his forehead and kisses his cheek, eyes worried as he looks over his shoulder on his way to the kitchen. Yoongi watches him go, and then toes off his house slippers to tuck up against the armrest. It’s a familiar crease, except this time there’s no Hoseok to wedge him in deeper; Yoongi’s head drops back against the cushions and tries not to let his lungs swallow him whole.

He’s not sure how long it’s been since he’s arrived, but the sound of Seokjin puttering about the kitchen and Jimin laughing pulls heavy at his lids, and he’s asleep before either of them finish making dinner.

 

∞∞∞

 

“-you can’t let Yoongi know,” and that’s Taehyung, voice small over the phone. “He’s going to flip shit.”

“He’s gonna try anyway,” Seokjin sighs, “We might as well just tell him, Tae. Come clean about the whole thing.”

“Hoseok’s not gonna do it for sure,” Jimin adds, and his voice is muffled in the way that means he’s got his chin hooked over Seokjin’s shoulder. “He’s going to find out eventually.”

“He asked me to keep it a secret.”

“ _Lacuna_ asked you to keep it a secret,” Seokjin says.

“And I’m not going to watch us break in half because of this,” Jimin says, fierce, “Tae, he’s going to be furious if we don’t.”

“Hobi-”

“Erased his memories of Yoongi?” Jimin hisses, “Yeah, I’m sorry, but I don’t give a goddamn about what happens to him at this point.”

"What?” Yoongi says suddenly, pushing himself up from the couch. He’s still half-asleep, but the words cut through the haze like sobriety, the breakup, a fistfight. Seokjin startles hard, and Jimin’s the first one to react, though not fast enough. Yoongi snatches the phone from his hand and presses his up to his ear, trying not to let his voice crack. Something desperate and terrified rises up in his gut — something he hasn’t felt since he’d slammed closed the front door of Hoseok’s apartment and shattered their relationship to pieces by his feet.

“Hyung,” Jimin warns, eyes big.

“Shut it,” Yoongi snaps, “Tae, what the fuck is happening?”

“Promise me,” he says, and his voice is placating and juvenile in a way that makes him want to punch something. Or someone. “You have to promise me you aren’t going to do anything stupid if I tell you.”

“I’m going to do something stupid if you don’t.”

“Fuck,” Seokjin cuts off, shoving a slip of paper into Yoongi’s hand. “Here, he-"

—   Client    Jung Hoseok    has chosen to follow through  
with a memory erasure procedure at Lacuna Clinics.  
Our client has chosen to forget previous  
_partner:    Min Yoongi   , and his official written_  
_approval for this procedure is attached within_  
_the documents below._  
_As his caretaker(s), please do not_  
_mention    Min Yoongi    to our client_  
_again, as it may cause...   —_

The phone slips from Yoongi’s hand. It drops to the floor with a noise that echoes for miles, Taehyung’s voice rushing out like a tidal wave, noises blurring.

“Yoongi,” someone is saying — the sound of Seokjin’s voice in both ears. “Yoongi, breathe with me.”

Five counts. Four counts. 

“Where is it?” he demands, tearing to his feet.

“Where’s what?” and that’s Jimin now, starting to come into focus across the room. “Hyung?”

“That Lacuna place,” Yoongi says, trying not to let his voice break, “I need the address.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Jimin.”

“What are you going to do there, anyway?” Seokjin cuts off, “Hoseok doesn’t know who you are anymore.”

“That wasn’t, that was, that was,” Yoongi cracks. It’s a flimsy excuse and he knows it. “Jin, please, I-” 

“In the morning,” Seokjin says, “You can do whatever you want, okay?” he murmurs, gathering Yoongi up in his arms. _Just not tonight._

“Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

_ It hurts.  _

 

∞∞∞

 

Yoongi isn’t stupid enough to confront Hoseok about it.

If it’s some ploy their friends put together to help Yoongi get the fuck over their relationship, he’ll take it quietly, helplessly. He’s in the music shop on third street during Hoseok’s Wednesday shift when he sees him for the first time in a month. 

Yoongi’s holding onto a record he’s been meaning to buy for weeks because he's not willing to go out of his way to go when Hoseok isn’t there, no matter how much he wants to avoid him. He knows, but never wants to admit, the fact that he stays away because he’ll see Hoseok once and won’t be able to stop.

“Can I help you?” someone asks, and the voice is straight out of Yoongi’s nightmares. The consonants slightly flat, sounding like they’re spoken around a smile. Yoongi looks up from where he’s rummaging through new releases and into the face of one Jung Hoseok.

Yoongi’s hand goes slack on the vinyl he’s clutching. He’s forgotten how beautiful Hoseok is, even when he’s standing a polite distance away (he's been nothing but professional at work, he knows). He hasn’t treated Yoongi like a stranger for years now, and it feels wrong to be here, knowing something he doesn’t, itching under his skin.

Hoseok's eyes are wide, brown, creased in the lids. His skin is still warm, even under the ugly fluorescents of retail store lighting, and his outfit isn’t anything particularly becoming, but Yoongi feels like he’s never looked better. He swallows, shifting his weight to the heel of his back foot and tries to think of an excuse to make him leave or make him stay; Yoongi doesn’t know which one he wants anymore.

“No,” Yoongi stumbles, tugging awkwardly at his piercings, “I’m okay- I’ve been here before.”

“Okay,” Hoseok chirps, ducking his head, “I’ll be at the counter,” he points to the register behind him, “So let me know if you need help later,” he says.

“Yeah,” Yoongi replies faintly, clutching onto the edge of the album packaging hard enough to hurt. 

He watches Hoseok amble back to his desk and pull out a stool to sit in, legs crossing in the way he always does. Something in Yoongi’s cheeks feel like they’ve been punched bruised, his teeth spilling out against his tongue and the scuffed up tile.

The thing is, Yoongi’s always been half-empty and loving Hoseok hadn’t changed much, but there’s a feeling of sediment seeping back into his chest when he watches the shape of him behind the computer. The way he turns magazine pages, his spindle-fingers blurring across the keyboard, his feet tapping gently against the cupboards by his knee as he swings his leg back and forth. It’s an old habit of his, too much energy he’s unable to dispel. 

It’s nothing, he tells himself. He should be over this. He’s been done with Hoseok for a while, and it’s never been clearer that he feels the same about Yoongi, but there’s something else that can’t be denied. It’s a sunflower to the light: Yoongi’s face twisted up into the orbit of his presence because old habits die hard, but is this really something he learns or something he’s born with? The first time he’d met Hoseok, the sound in his veins had told him “yes” without speaking, and they’re telling him yes then, yes now, yes always — Hoseok’s eyes flickering back and forth as he reads, lower lip caught between his teeth.

Yoongi looks away when Hoseok glances up, averting his eyes quick. He puts the record back on the shelf. He puts his earbuds in, straightening out the collar of his shirt. When he slips his way out the door, he tucks his arms close to each other and says,  “I miss you,” quickly, almost ashamed, the words stolen from his lips the minute they leave his mouth.

He heads down the street, fingers clutched around the Seokjin's card in his pocket, phone trilling out directions in his ears. Yoongi, with single-minded focus, cutting his way through the city.

The record shop on third is a lead weight in his back pocket, but Yoongi doesn’t look back. He can’t. He won’t.

 

∞∞∞

 

Yoongi squints. He’d forgotten to put his contacts in today. He thinks the nametag reads a mild “Jungkook”. There’s a head of brown hair and fast-going fingers on the seal of envelopes and it’s a good minute before he clears his throat, the boy’s head jerking up fast.

“Good evening, sir,” Jungkook says politely, if looking a bit frazzled, “How can I help you today?”

“I’m here about,” Yoongi rummages in his pocket for a moment. He catches Seokjin’s courtesy card by the edge of two fingers and slides it over the counter. Jungkook’s head tilts to the side when he reads the print, the grin dropping off his face in a flash.

“Oh- I’m sorry,” Jungkook says, fingers stilling. He shifts in his chair, taking the card down to look at it properly. The text has started to fade from all the creases Yoongi’s worked into the paper, folding and unfolding it so much the words have burned into the back of his brain. “I’m so sorry about this; I take it you’re Min Yoongi?”

“The one and only,” Yoongi says, leaning forward to rest his arms on the counter.

“Well. Sir,” he clears his throat with a grimace, “Uh, I’m not sure exactly what you’re looking for by giving us this information. The process is, unfortunately, irreversible, but I can get the doctor for you if you want to discuss-” 

“The doctor,” Yoongi rasps, desperate, “Please.”

 

∞∞∞

 

He's been sitting in the waiting room for under an hour before he remembers where he's seen Jungkook before. Hoseok's friend, he thinks painfully, knee bouncing. _Hoseok's friend let him forget me like that._

"Min Yoongi?" Jungkook calls, voice sweet. He waits until Yoongi's on his feet before letting him through the side door, pulling out an office chair for him to sit in.

“I understand you’re here because you’re interested in following through with the procedure,” Namjoon says without introduction, smiling up at Yoongi. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one hand, gesturing to the seat across from him with the other. His face is soft around the edges and kind, and Yoongi looks for some sort of pity in his eyes until he realizes there’s none. “Your situation is a little dire on our part, so I pushed back a couple clients to fit you into our schedule.”

“Oh,” Yoongi’s face is burning, “Thanks.”

“Right now I just need you to sign a couple waivers for me.”

Yoongi’s faintly aware of Jungkook passing in and out of the room, something about going to bed and him leaving Lacuna a key to his apartment and bringing things back. He barely scans through the leaflets, saying that if Hoseok’s done it and survived, he doesn't really care about the fine print.

It won’t be hard to find Hoseok’s stuff in his place. He knows what he’s touched and where, memorized the map of his footprints on the cold wood floors. Yoongi gathers up the memory of Hoseok in a box, dumps it at Jimin’s place because he has nowhere else for it to go. He deletes the photos, tosses the shirts; the pants. Hoseok’s sneakers end up in the trashcan. His books in the public donation bin.

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi says, fingers curled into a fist. He can’t remember the last time he’d been alone in his bed — usually crashing at his desk or on the couch, and he’s not quite sure, either, who he’s talking to.

There’s a polaroid on the bedside drawer: second anniversary, Hoseok smiling up big at the camera with Yoongi tucked under his chin, eyes bright. There’d been champagne that night, he remembers, so much love that they were drowning with it.

Yoongi swallows down two pills, head creased into the pillows, trying not to cry.

“You don’t love him anymore,” he says to himself, small and resolute. “You don’t love him anymore.”

Yoongi closes his eyes and tries to pretend it wasn’t his own voice splintering in two.

And sleep, like water, pours from the gourd of his lips.

 

∞∞∞

 

Hoseok hits him.

Yoongi sees the fist, the poor aim, the arm, and catches the punch in the side of his jaw without a word. He doesn’t move until the force of Hoseok’s knuckles stain against his teeth and send him staggering into the kitchen counter, two hands scrambling for purchase on the granite.

Taehyung’s out of his seat in a second, but Seokjin puts a hand on his arm to stop him.

“Where the hell were you?” Hoseok asks, and his voice shakes. His features are twisted with anger, brows pinched as he struggles around the words.

Yoongi’s still dizzy, elbow throbbing from where it’d made hard contact with the floor. He hasn’t put in his contacts today (he’d forgotten, like many things he told himself not to) and his vision ripples, warps. Hoseok stands above him, some god under the halo of Jimin’s apartment lighting.

“I waited for you,” Hoseok bites out, voice shaking, “For six days, and you didn’t once answer my texts. You never picked up the phone-”

“Hobi,” Yoongi slurs, shaking his head. “I can explain.”

“You can always explain,” he shoots back.

Yoongi closes his eyes, slumps back against the hardwood. The past week skitters by in his head: the blues and purples, neon orange and vomit hitting the back of his throat.

“Hoseok, you don’t understand.”

“Then help me,” he says, but even those words seem dead, “Yoongi-”

The entirety of the house knows that things have been fucked up bad this time, and they’ve already had a milder version of this conversation at the beginning of their relationship, things set on an electric livewire between the two of them.

“I care about you,” Hoseok grits out like it hurts, “But you keep treating me like I’m expendable.”

Yoongi’s raw knuckled fingers are limp by his sides. He takes the blows without lifting bruised forearms, lets him dig as deep as he wants. Some terrible, masochistic part of Yoongi wants to know how bad it can get. How brutal Hoseok can be.

“You keep acting like I can’t help you.”

“You can’t.”

“But you’re not even letting me try!” Hoseok bursts out, “You go on and on about this communication bullshit and healthy relationships, but you don’t even tell me why you’re hurt,” his voice cracks, “And disappear for days on end and leave me sitting here _worrying_ about you and feeling so fucking useless-”

“You want to know useless?” Yoongi cuts off. He’s close to grabbing Hoseok by the dumb fucking collar and shoving him against the wall, “It’s how you feel when your _boyfriend-,”_ the word turns mocking and high-pitched between his lips, “Has commitment issues and it takes him a year to admit he wants this to be serious, let alone take up your offer of moving in.”

“Yoongi, I can’t change that,” he says, “But I'm trying, and I feel like that’s more than I can say about you.” 

“Don’t make your problems about me.”

“Then what else am I supposed to do?!” Hoseok yells, “I’m not someone you can show up and take to bed and toss aside when you’re done.”

“I never said you were!”

“Then fucking act like it-”

“ _I am!_ ” Yoongi yells back, feeling something splinter from the pier, “You’re so fucking desperate, Hoseok- why do you think you keep calling me to walk you through your goddamn panic attacks? Huh? You aren’t some fucking child anymore-”

“At least I’m trusting you with my issues; you’re just sitting there pretending like I can’t see that you’re clearly not okay-”

“That’s not the fucking problem, and you know it!”

“Then what is it?”

“You think I need someone like you to keep me alive,” Yoongi spits, “But I’ve been fine my whole fucking life without your help!”

“Don't say stuff like that-”

“You’re fucking useless, Hoseok,” Yoongi yells, “I don’t need you!”

“ _Yoongi!_ ” Taehyung snaps. His chair squeals against the floor as it skitters behind him, nearly toppling over when he stands.

The whole of the apartment air: like it’s been frozen. Hoseok looks like he can’t settle on an expression, his whole face a map of confusion; hurt. Someone jostles Yoongi’s shoulder, and it snaps in tight, people yelling in the background.

The lights start going off around the two of them, and Taehyung eventually blurs into nothing, dissolving quietly into the background like he was never there. The dining room peels off in glass, the table behind them sinking into the floor.

Then it’s just Hoseok and Yoongi, three feet apart, a curtain of spotlight curling down around their shoulders.

Snow is starting to fall, flaking down from the sky. Yoongi looks up when one lands on his eyelash, startled, and the blue has rolled in so deep the color is inked in black. White noise rolls like waves in his ears.

Yoongi tears his eyes away, looks down. He meets nothing but darkness and the sound of his own footsteps.

 

∞∞∞

 

Tattoos: a meaning of permanence. 

Yoongi owns very little of himself, he learns with time. It’s a working process come thirteen years of living and all his ghosts coming to him in his dreams — arms scattered with bruises. The skin flaking off, welting red and painful beneath cellophane, and there’s something transparent about the way he grows into his ribs that still haunts his fingertips, but at least he has this.

Hoseok starts sleeping less, legs shaking when he tries to stand. He’s hardly around Yoongi for long, even in the apartment. Yoongi clutches his phone between cold fingers and tries not to let it get to him.

He tells himself that Hoseok has morning classes. That they happen to miss each other because their schedules are starting to stack up on each other. Or because it’s performance season and Hoseok’s taking to holing himself up in the studio for days and days and Yoongi can’t bother to leave his music alone. It’s not their relationship falling apart; it’s not the fact they’re not trying that hard anymore, waiting for it to die because neither of them have the energy to salvage it.

It’s when the itch can’t be bled out from under his skin when Yoongi goes to the needle. Seokjin gives him a disapproving look from his side of the seat, but pulls out his sketchbook anyway and tosses the empty pages into Yoongi’s lap, quick to busy himself with the alcohol and clingwrap.

There’s nothing meditative about the pain. It’s the outcome that’s different; beautiful. Yoongi’s fingers on the pencil, Seokjin’s on the gun, trigger after trigger and cutting him open from the skin-side in.

His own, is what comes after. This is the only time where Yoongi gets to deal in forevers: the flowers curling up his pale bicep, the thinness of his hipbones where the metal sheers at the cartilage until there’s nothing left, the needlepoint tracing trees against the delicate insides of his wrist.

He thinks of Hoseok then — suddenly, irreparably — and wonders how he’s been doing: their chat lying the lowest in his messenger history.

Seokjin paints a row of dahlias on the underside of his ribcage. Yoongi closes his eyes and feels the tears roll hot and heavy down the side of one cheek. Somewhere, roses bloom.

 

∞∞∞

 

You cannot catch sunlight, even between closed fingers. 

This: Yoongi had forgotten.

 

∞∞∞

 

“You didn’t have to stop,” Hoseok says, and his voice is fond in a way Yoongi hasn’t heard in a while.

He looks up from the keys, surprised, ivory melted under his fingertips. Hoseok leans against the open door of the practice room, hands stuffed into his pocket, smile teasing his lips. He makes sure Yoongi’s watching before he raises an arm to knock softly against the wall. 

“Can I come in?” he asks quietly, hooking one ankle over the other.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks,” Hoseok says, and wanders in like he hasn’t already spent years in here.

The piano bench is big enough for the two of them to sit on either end and not touch, but Hoseok pushes in close and Yoongi lets him, slipping a hand off the keys to tangle with his, shoulders bumping. It’s been a while since the two of them had time to be together like this (alone), Chopin filtering in from a practice room across the hall. It should be ugly romantic, but Yoongi has stopped caring for a while and is, instead, hyper-focused on the press of Hoseok’s body against his.

“Is it cold outside?” Yoongi murmurs after a while, turning his head so that he’s caught up in Hoseok’s profile. It’s every artists’ dream, he thinks, the beauty of it. 

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Hoseok laughs, “I looked so stupid getting snowed on before I caught some kid leaving the music hall.”

Yoongi makes an aborted sound — half joking, half genuine surprise — and reaches over to cup one of Hoseok’s cold cheeks in his hands.

“Come here then,” he smiles, leaning up to smile at him, quiet; soft. Hoseok’s skin is freezing. “Let hyung warm you up.”

 

∞∞∞

 

The apartment has been getting colder lately.

Yoongi, crashing at the studio because he can’t be alone in the house with Hoseok, and Hoseok sleeping on the couch because he can’t be alone in the bedroom with Yoongi. Things go around and around, funneling down the drain like morning coffee.

He doesn’t bother pouring Yoongi a cup before leaving for class.

 

∞∞∞

 

Hoseok’s camera is pale yellow, buttercup. He turns over the polaroid in his hands and flips absentmindedly through his photos: Yoongi buried under the covers, a shock of mint hair, a pair of shoes, the food at their post-finals dinner, a group shot of Seokjin and Jimin and Taehyung; Yoongi nothing but a blur as he’d fallen off the edge of the pool.

There’s a lot to remember, the passing days like a dream when Yoongi looks at him. His eyes, dark, cheeks full when he swallows down Hoseok’s kiss without complaint. He’s been pulling away lately, but Hoseok is easy to give him space even though he doesn’t understand why.

The anxiety, like a shockpool in his chest. Yoongi doesn’t come home for dinner, like the three days previous. 

Hoseok knows this; expects this; and still sets the table for two.

 

∞∞∞

 

“Do you know what it’s like, loving you?” Yoongi slurs, tipping his empty glass over as he surges to his feet. It’s the first time all week he’s seen Hoseok, shared space with Hoseok, breathed in the smell of his aftershave as he scrambles to his feet. “It feels like I’m always in your shadow,” he says, lashes clinging together with tears, “It’s always me chasing after you.”

Because Hoseok will never be able to love Yoongi the way Yoongi loves him. That’s the only thing he knows.

 

∞∞∞

 

Yoongi’s not sure when things started turning into indifference.

He wakes up to the sound of Hoseok puttering about in the kitchen, humming quietly under his breath as he plates dishes, and there’s a burst of something unnamed in his throat. He’d forgotten what it was like for things to be good again. What loving Hoseok tasted like.

The days have started feeling lighter, almost blurry in their happiness, and Yoongi shuffles into the kitchen on his own with a smile tugging at his lips. There’s really nowhere to sit that’s conducive to stare at Hoseok, so he swings himself up easily onto the counter with a yawn.

“G’morning,” he mumbles, leaning back to rest his weight on his hands.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Hoseok grins over his shoulder. The light through their apartment window breaks over the clef of his shirt, and it makes him look like he’s glowing from the inside out. Yoongi’s throat seizes up, forgetting the luxury of being able to commit the swell of his skeleton to memory.

Hoseok says something again, but Yoongi isn’t listening, too busy staring instead. The world goes blurry except for the shape of Hoseok: his lips stretching around his sentences, the gold of his skin, his fingers where he balances his chopsticks across the top of his bowl as he sets everything down on the table.

“Yoongi?” Hoseok asks, playful. He wanders up to the countertop with a grin and slides up between Yoongi’s legs. He spreads his knees out further to let him in. “You okay there?”

His words are joking, light and airy and teasing and Yoongi knows there’s nothing more to that, but there’s a whole year of memories that he’s got rattling about his skull, and he presses his lips tight together in order not to cry. He hasn’t been this close to Hoseok in so long - close enough to count the sprinkle of freckles across his nose-bridge. 

“Hey- baby,” Hoseok says again, pressing in so his hips are flush against the granite. He slips the palm of his hand against Yoongi’s cheek, concerned. “Are you sick?”

Yoongi can feel the warmth of Hoseok’s palm in every nerve ending of his skin, his jaw, thumb stroking delicately across his the side of his face. He missed this and didn’t even know; didn’t even realize.

“‘M just crazy,” he sighs, eyes fluttering shut. He doesn’t need to look to know how far to turn his head to the side, pressing his lips to Hoseok’s wrist, his arm. “Crazy for you, Jung Hoseok.” 

Hoseok’s eyes widen, like he wasn’t expecting him to answer.

Yoongi feels something helpless swell up in his chest, knowing this will be the last of the last by the end of the tonight, and hooks two fingers in the collar of Hoseok’s shirt to drag him down for a kiss. He catches himself on the counter before his lips slam into Yoongi’s, noses bumping. Then Hoseok tilts his head to the side, righting the angle, and leans in hesitantly, like he’s unsure if it’s is okay.

“I love you,” Yoongi says, pulling away first. He’s breathless in the best way, leaning forward to press his forehead against Hoseok’s. 

“I love you too,” he replies, like he doesn’t really believe this is happening.

Yoongi curls into himself, then, and burrows haplessly into the warmth of Hoseok’s chest, the other’s arms wrap around Yoongi’s shoulders to pull him close, both heartbeats going twice as fast. 

They don’t speak for a long, long time.

 

∞∞∞

 

Hoseok, like many things in Yoongi’s life, starts running away.

 

∞∞∞

 

“Happy birthday, Yoongi,” Hoseok says quietly, like he’s embarrassed about the whole situation, the entire day a mess of dodging their friends and shaken up bottles of cola. He holds out a box and looks away, and his cheeks are red. 

Yoongi takes the present from him and looks at it for a moment. It’s of decent weight, nothing particular, and then back at Hoseok: his chest seizing up.

“Hoseokie,” he says numbly, fingers fumbling on the bow. “You didn’t have to, you know?”

“But I wanted to,” Hoseok replies, twisting his hands together. “You’re 23 already, hyung. That’s old.”

Yoongi twists in his seat, both their knees knocking together.

“Well,” he says, purposely thoughtful, “How does it feel?”

“How does what feel?” 

“To be dating a grandpa.”

“I don’t know,” he says thoughtfully, kissing the corner of Yoongi’s mouth. “Depends on if he’s willing to fuck after this or not.”

Yoongi pulls a face, disgusted, Hoseok dissolves into laughter as he trips his way off the couch.

 

∞∞∞

 

When Yoongi wakes up, the sun cutting a streak across his face, something like panic sits in his chest. He remembers this day so clearly, like stepping backwards into the scuff marks his shoes left on the kitchen tiles. Hoseok’s stupid, shitty apartment that neither of them have bothered to clean up properly.

Hoseok’s humming something in the bathroom, the door ajar and framing his figure as he brushes his teeth with almost single-minded focus. He’s got one hand combing through his bangs, hips swaying as he dances along to the music. 

“Hey,” he garbles around his toothbrush, spitting into the sink. He rinses his mouth out and leans against the doorframe. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

Yoongi’s chest aches at the sight of him. 

“You,” he says, honestly. 

Hoseok’s eyes soften, and he moves to climb back under the covers with Yoongi. He breathes the scent of Hoseok in, how he hasn’t shaved yet and his mouth is glistening cherry red in the semi-bright bedroom.

“You’re going to have to hide me somewhere,” Hoseok says eventually, lips damp.

“Where?” 

“I don’t know,” Hoseok admits, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry.” 

 

∞∞∞

 

They’ve been making out for the better part of an hour now.

Yoongi can’t quite catch his breath and Hoseok’s lips are swollen, hickeys trailing down past the overstretched collar of his shirt. He hears their friends yelling in the living room, but Hoseok’s locked his door to keep them out, shaking hands fisted in the sheets as he hovers over Yoongi’s thin frame, leaning down to press their cheeks together. 

“Better?” Yoongi asks, even as the sound of limbs being hacked off breaks through the silence. Hoseok winces, but nods, rolling over to collapse on his side and tuck his face into the crook of Yoongi’s neck. He murmurs something unintelligible, and Yoongi turns to sling an arm around his waist.

He’d found Hoseok by himself, blasting Shakira to try and block out the sounds of the horror movie marathon, jumping five feet in the air when Yoongi walked in unannounced. Hoseok’s hand has slipped its way underneath Yoongi’s shirt by now, and his palm is splayed hot around the curve of his spine. It’s a vulnerable place to be held, but Yoongi looks at Hoseok and all he can think is “this could be love”. 

That’s when it’s over for him. This is when he dies.

 

∞∞∞

 

“Hey,” Hoseok says, and Yoongi looks up from where he’s trying to choose between two albums.“I didn’t know you came here.” 

“Um,” he replies, face flushed. Fuck. Last night with Hoseok hadn’t gone over that well (he’d spilt iced coffee down the front of his shirt and then attempted to clean it up with the tablecloth), and he feels like a complete idiot standing here with his hair unwashed and jeans almost falling off his legs. “I,” he stutters, scratching the back of his head, “I didn’t know you worked here.” 

“It’s fine,” Hoseok beams. Yoongi has half the thought to pull his sunglasses down from the top of his head and wear them around inside. “I just wanted to say thank you for last night. I know it’s kinda unprofessional and whatever, but, uh, it was super fun,” he says. 

“Right,” Yoongi replies, faintly.

Hoseok glances over his shoulder at the clock, then back at Yoongi.

“I get off in fifteen minutes,” he says, “You wanna get coffee?” 

 

∞∞∞

 

“You should tell me more about yourself,” Hoseok says, their shoulders bumping. He’s wearing a sleeveless tank, and he’s got a flannel tied loosely around his waist. The most skin Yoongi shows is barely past his wrists. “I mean, besides the whole “I got to school and I have a part time job” stuff.” 

“Okay, uh, well,” he replies. Hoseok makes an encouraging noise. “I make music.” 

“You’re shitting me.” 

“Nah,” Yoongi laughs, stopping to duck into the ice cream store. He has the overwhelming urge to hold Hoseok’s hand and share the same cone with him, but he doesn’t, just pays for his stuff first and lets Hoseok follow him out again. “What’you do?”

“Jus dance stuff,” Hoseok shrugs, sheepish. He takes a bite out of his popsicle. “Nothing that special.”

“You’re shitting me,” Yoongi says, comically surprised. 

“Nah,” Hoseok replies, startled into laughter.

 

∞∞∞

 

Yoongi is twelve when he Yuna throws a punch at him. He staggers, tripping over himself as he goes down. Someone laughs, spits on his chin, and the saliva stings as a foot comes down and meets his face halfway. 

 

∞∞∞

 

“So Jungkook’s friend, huh,” Jimin says, dropping down in the chair next to Yoongi’s. 

“Jungkook’s friend,” he agrees miserably, watching Hoseok give Seokjin a half-hearted lap dance. He hates that it turns him on anyway, watching Hoseok fumble his way through a routine after refusing to lose another round of strip poker.

“He’s cute.” 

“I know,” Yoongi moans, covering his face with both hands. His cheeks are flaming. He feels uncomfortably warm, even in Jimin’s relatively spacious apartment, his leather couch, his air conditioned living room. Yoongi’s going to die here, he knows it, death by spontaneous combustion for sure.

“I think you’d be cute together.” 

“Fuck off, Jimin,” he says, tucking his knees up to his chest. He doesn’t see the look Hoseok shoots him from where he’s straddling Seokjin’s lap, a look of concern on his face. “Go die.” 

“You’re so rude to me, hyung,” Jimin says, dumping the rest of his water down Yoongi’s shirt when he gets up off the couch.

 

∳

 

Yoongi still doesn't know why he's here, sandwiched between Jimin and Taehyung on the couch, taking miserable sips from his beer bottle as he watches couples counting down the seconds until midnight. He thinks that it might not be worth it, feeling so alone, but there's a shock of orange hair that passes through the crowd, and he can't look away.

He spots Jungkook, holding said kid by the arm, tucking his fingers up in his elbow. Yoongi turns away and tries to fit himself back into the conversation as smoothly as he can. 

 

∳

 

“You gonna ask about the tats?” Yoongi says, words brittle. Hoseok looks up to meet his eyes, surprised.

“No, I- I was gonna say your shoes are cool,” he says, already turning away, “But it's, uhm, it's whatever."

_ Shit. _

"Wait,” Yoongi says, not entirely of his own volition. His arm shoots out to catch Hoseok’s elbow and both of them freeze at the touch. This wasn’t how it was. Yoongi doesn’t know why he’s doing this now. Even the memory of Hoseok seems to realize that things are going wrong. “Don’t go.” 

“What?”

“I should’ve said it before,” he cuts off, “On your birthday when we fought; I should’ve told you.” 

“Uh...” 

“I didn’t want you to leave,” he admits, voice breaking. “I can’t watch you walk away from me again, Hobi. Just stay, please, just until I have to go again.”

“Yoongi-” he tries.

“I’m sorry for letting us get distant. I’m sorry for not trying, I do want to be there for you, and I wasn’t when I should’ve been. I didn’t fix things when I should’ve, and the one thing I hate the most is seeing you leave me behind and. I shouldn’t have been like that I was jealous and angry at things I couldn’t change anymore, I-”

“Hyung,” Hoseok bursts out, closing the distance between them as he crushes him into a hug. “Stop,” he breathes, voice wet. Yoongi knows this is just a memory, but it’s so vivid and it’s so real and he fists his hands up Hoseok’s sweater and lets himself _pretend_ , if just for a moment. “You’re not supposed to be telling me this now.”  
_  
But you’re going to be gone when I wake up,_ he wants to say, but can’t get the words out of his throat. _I’m never going to see you again, Hoseok. I won’t remember where you live. I won’t even know you exist._

“It was my fault too,” Hoseok murmurs, stroking down Yoongi’s spine, the worn fabric of his shirt. “When you came out of your shell and got so attached to me I didn’t know what to do, so I ran,” he says, closing his eyes around his tears, “I should’ve done better.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

Yoongi opens his eyes, faces the fact that Jimin’s living room is beginning to disappear: starting with the couch, the kitchen island. Hoseok’s the only solid thing left in his plane of existence, and he clings desperately to him, scared. 

“I’m really going to miss you,” he admits, finally, and it’s the truth that he’s finally letting go. 

“It'll be okay,” Hoseok murmurs, flickering a little in his grasp. 

_No,_ Yoongi thinks, gasping. _Not yet, please not yet._

“You’ll find me again, right?” Hoseok asks.

“Yeah,” he says, desperate. “I will, I promise.” 

Then he is gone, and all Yoongi holds is empty air — fingers closing uselessly around the sunlight.

 

∞∞∞

 

("And deleted," Jungkook says sadly, looking up at Namjoon for confirmation.

"Looks good," he replies, starting to pack up the equipment. "We should go before he wakes up."

"But he'll be alone if we do."

Namjoon pauses, fingers stilling on a wire.

"Yes," he agrees softly, nodding his head. "He'll be alone."

Jungkook's expression is conflicted. "I don't like that."

"Why?" Namjoon asks, like he's done this a thousand times before, "He won't even be sad, Guk. He just lost everything he's felt for Hoseok...ever."

"You can still miss people you don't know," Jungkook murmurs, brushing Yoongi's bangs back into place. "Isn't that sad to you?")

 

∞∞∞  
  
_**present**_

 

Yoongi wakes up in a stranger’s bed. 

He hears someone — Hoseok, his name is Hoseok — bumping around in the connecting bathroom, the door closed firmly as not to disturb him. He groans, struggling to his feet as the sound of the tap turns off and is barely a hand through his hair before the door opens and Yoongi squints up at Hoseok.

_Too early,_ he thinks, _to be blinded like this._

“I don’t have work today,” Yoongi blurts out. He never puts out on the first date. Hell, they didn’t even have a first date, yet: “Do you want to get coffee with me?” 

Hoseok's soft around the edges in the morning light. 

“I’d be honored,” he says, and reaches a hand out for Yoongi’s.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! feel free to leave requests below
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://brightjoon.tumblr.com)


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